News

Data on beneficiaries of EU funds under direct management in 2012 published

June 29, 2013

The European Commission has published information on beneficiaries of EU funds managed by the Commission under direct management in the financial year 2012. As of today, the data is accessible via the Financial Transparency System (FTS), a search engine designed to ensure EU funding transparency. This information on recipients of EU funding in 2012 reflects the changes in the EU financial rules applied as of the beginning of this year.

The Financial Transparency System (FTS) was created following the European Transparency initiative launched by the Commission in 2005 and it responds to the increasing need for EU funding transparency. Since 2008, the data has been published annually, usually by the end of June for the previous financial year. Altogether, there are more than 255 000 items recorded in FTS for the period 2007-2011, with some 31 000 just entered for 2012.

This service has gained popularity with 260 queries on average per day. As of today those interested will be able to experience a completely new design as well as many improvements in the search capacities, with a new interactive search function and more structured search results.

The system provides access to information on beneficiaries of funds directly managed by the Commission within the EU budget, as well as on recipients of funds within the 10th European Development Fund (Financial Years from 2010 to 2012). Part of the expenses has been excluded from publication or made confidential in line with the prevailing financial rules. Data on beneficiaries of funds administered by the Member States through shared management is not available on FTS and is published under their individual responsibility.

Anyone can access this data on the internet and perform searches on the basis of different criteria. The information provided includes, among others, names and locations of beneficiaries, actual amounts and types of expenditure. In addition, each expenditure item includes a reference to the relevant Commission department, as well as the part of EU budget (or budget line) from which the item has been financed.

Following the entry into force of the new Financial Regulation and its rules of application, several important changes have been introduced with impact on the publication of financial year 2012 data onwards. For public procurement contracts, information is published only for those higher or equal to EUR 15 000. As opposed to previous years, there are no more confidential names of beneficiaries (i.e. entries where "confidential" or "natural person" appeared instead of the names of beneficiaries). In those cases publication has been waived, where the disclosure risks threatening the rights and freedoms of individuals concerned as protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, or harm the commercial interests of the beneficiary.